In general, the air conditioner is an appliance for cooling or heating a room by means of a refrigerating cycle of refrigerant having a compressor, a four way valve, an outdoor heat exchanger (a condenser or evaporator), an expansion device, and an indoor heat exchanger, for providing a comfortable room environment to a user.
Currently, for saving a utility power cost, the thermal storage air conditioner is also used in which the room is cooled by using a condensing heat source of ice produced during night time when people use less utility power during day time when people use more utility power.
FIG. 1 illustrates a diagram of an exemplary related art thermal storage air conditioner.
Referring to FIG. 1, the related art thermal storage air conditioner is provided with an outdoor unit 3, a thermal storage unit 10, and an indoor unit 20.
The outdoor unit 3 is provided with a compressor 1 for compressing refrigerant, and an outdoor heat exchanger 2 for making the refrigerant compressed to flow by the compressor 1 to heat exchange.
The thermal storage unit 10 is provided on one side of the outdoor unit 3 for temporary storage of energy. The thermal storage unit 10 is provided with a thermal storage tank 11 having a heat storage substance held therein, a water pump 12 for circulating water in the thermal storage tank 11, a heat exchanger 13 for heat exchange between the water and the refrigerant, and a refrigerant pump 14 for forced flow of refrigerant. The heat exchanger 13 is connected to one end of the thermal storage tank 11, and has cold water circulated therethrough from the thermal storage tank 11 by the water pump 12.
In the meantime, the indoor unit 20 is installed in the room which requires cooling, and is provided with an indoor heat exchanger 21 for making heat exchange, and an expansion device 22 for expanding refrigerant introduced to the indoor heat exchanger 21.
The related art thermal storage air conditioner makes ice in the thermal storage tank 11 of the thermal storage unit 10 during night time, and cools the room by using the ice in the thermal storage tank 11 made thus during day time (for an example, 13:00˜16:00 hours) when a utility power consumption is great.
In this instance, the compressor 1 is stationary, and the refrigerant pump 14 circulates the refrigerant. Therefore, in the refrigerant cycle of this instance, the refrigerant is supplied to the indoor unit 20 by the refrigerant pump 14. The refrigerant supplied to the indoor unit 20 thus is passed through the expansion device 22, and made to heat exchange with air at the indoor heat exchanger 21 which serves as an evaporator. In this instance, since the indoor heat exchanger 21 absorbs heat from the air, to drop a temperature of the air blown through the indoor heat exchanger 21, the room is cooled.
The refrigerant absorbs heat at the indoor heat exchanger, introduced to the thermal storage tank 11, and discharges the heat to cold water at the heat exchanger 13, to return to cold refrigerant again. The cold refrigerant is then introduced to the refrigerant pump 14, to finish a cycle.
However, the related art thermal storage air conditioner has the following problems.
The related art thermal storage air conditioner has the outdoor unit 3 and the thermal storage unit fabricated as one unit. Therefore, separation of respective components is difficult.
Moreover, since the thermal storage unit 10 has all units required for cooling the room by using stored heat, such as the refrigerant pump 14 and so on, starting from the thermal storage tank 11 and the heat exchanger 13, mounted therein, assembly and installation is difficult and maintenance thereof is also very inconvenient.